Sunday, May 28, 2017

philosophy and fascism

”The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.
This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and
denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to
danger. It works the same in every country.”Hermann Goering in
Nuremberg Diary, by Gustave Gilbert, 1947

RAAF burial at Darwin 1942

I become frustrated with the shallow coverage of world news, as if we are living in a spontaneous bubble, with no context and no subtlety in it's causes. Our current world leaders represent us in the latest developments of the colonial and post-colonial expressions of capitalism and the permutations of power. Are they well placed to handle this?

An understanding of where we are now can best be achieved through some familiarity with the beginnings of the modern era; the narrative that starts with the Industrial Revolution, moving into the colonial era and (in our lifetime), the complex and often violent undoings of it.

The experiences of the 1930's in particular can be helpful in understanding that history needs to be viewed from perspectives other than Western ones. Japan was never formally colonised by the West, but it was forced to engage with the modern era on Western terms and was denied it's right to isolationism by America. Middle Eastern, African and Asian cultures face the same problems as those faced by Japan as they emerge from being colonial possessions. This emergence has been playing out since the 1930's, and some have yet to come to grips with it, but many of us in the West see only the violent parts of this emergence that have been brought to our doorsteps.

In addition, the label 'Fascism' is bandied about a great deal lately, and some reflection on the meaning of the word might be useful.

The following are two essays from my book 'Before Pearl Harbor. Making the Pacific War' (2008) and if there are assertions made without evidence in this excerpt, I believe they will have been addressed in other chapters.

The Kyoto School of Philosophy
“To become global, Oriental culture must not stop at its own specificity but rather it
must shed a new light on Western culture and a new world culture must be created.”
Nishida Kitaro
The Japanese struggle to modernize detonated a powerful tension between
two apparently irreconcilable realities. It was impossible for Japan to avoid the
technological challenge inherent in the Euro/American appearance on their
horizon. This appearance was set uncomfortably against the need to maintain a
national cultural identity in order not to be subsumed. Decades of political
contradictions followed, and yet these finally focused on the single issue of
control within the armies that were created to defend Japan.
Modern Japan evolved in a Western colonial context, responding to
Western actions and the failure of Western ideals. The Japanese people of the
time had to take responsibility for the actions of its government and its armies,
but the cumulative effect of frustrated engagement with the West in commerce
and politics ran almost parallel to the cumulative growth in power of the
ultranationalists within the Japanese armies.
However, the Japanese mission was not intended to be just military and
defensive. Those reactions were born of an understandable paranoia. The
challenge to reconcile national identity with modernity required the creation of
an intellectual framework more than a military one. The first step in this
process was to understand modernity.
For those of us who were raised in the West, it is difficult to see
modernity as anything other than a normal consequence of the passage of time,
leading to the undisputable present. Modernity, though, is an attitude as much
as a location in recent time. It has a huge collection of roots that are invisible to
most people in their everyday lives. A Protestant context in Scotland produced
the ‘founder’ of capitalism. Western philosophy retains its Greek rationalism.

The technology of the industrial revolution, also emerging from Scotland,
redefined workforces and cities and the countryside, and so on.
The consequence was an amalgam of concepts and structures that
placed Britain and Europe at the center of progress, technology, and wealth.
This was an unseen by-product of the capacity of the individual to reshape
culture through invention and creative thought. While always present as a
tendency throughout the ages, this creative energy was generally considered
to be culturally very dangerous if uncontrolled in the individual. Some
progressive societies emerged gradually into ‘The Age of Reason’ partly as a
consequence of allowing the freedom to reject Myth on an individual level.
Importantly though, they maintained the right to embrace Myth collectively.
This is an expression of pluralism. Few collective human changes have offered
more promise or created so many problems since the first use of language.
Cultural domination was implicit in this transition, despite the
enormous sophistication of many subjugated cultures, and it was assumed as a
consequence, that the rest of the world would provide cheap labor and raw
materials. In the European mind, Western rational materialism became the
measure of value and progress, and it seemed universal and inevitable. To
many, it still does, but materialism tends to undermine cultural meaning,
personally and collectively. Modernity in the Western sense is not the
inevitable form for a progressive society. Imagining that, and constructing an
alternative from within a pre-modern society was, and is still, a huge task.
The ‘Post-Perry’ Japanese nation found themselves on the wrong side of
a bi-polar world: East/West, progressive/backward, traditional/scientific.
Western/Other.
The East/West view of the world (toyo vs. seiyo) became ingrained as the
framework for Japanese people to understand their path to progress and the
sometimes radical changes this brought to their lives.
Many romantic reinventions of Japanese tradition followed as reactions
against change, but this split view also had the effect of politicians, military
men, and intellectuals becoming more receptive to philosophical ideas and
theories than would have been normal in the West. The Japanese had embraced
the challenge of creating the ideal nation state with enormous enthusiasm, and
they were receptive to those who could provide the language and the terms in which this could all be expressed. A similar motivation occurred in America
when revolutionaries rejected colonial rule and turned to the language and
ideas of the European Enlightenment to give shape to the new democratic
dream. By comparison, though, this was a minor paradigm adjustment because
it represented cultural extension or adaption, rather than reinvention.

Japanese philosophy came to be most representative and influential at
Kyoto State University, mainly under the guidance of Nishida Kitaro around
1913. Several generations of scholars followed. It was never a ‘school’ as such,
but a loose aggregation of independent thinkers. The scope of the work done
under this banner is huge, touching on developments from Greek, French,
German, and English philosophers, Theism, Christianity, and Buddhism.
What is particularly interesting for the purposes of this book is the self-
positioning of Japanese philosophy relative to a Euro-centric world, which
expressed itself through what is often called Western universalism. As it
represented the center of progress, the West had no need to define its
achievements in relation to the rest of the world. But thinking or action
elsewhere occurred in an inevitable Euro-American frame of reference, and it
hadn’t been very long since America itself had become part of that frame of
reference.
Third–world, or even First World, colonial intellectuals felt compelled to
reference European examples while their European counterparts felt no need to
reciprocate. Eastern intellectuals often felt compelled to write for an unseen
Western reader, but no Eastern equivalent exists for the Western writer. Of
course, this is not a ‘racial’ phenomenon; it is a cultural one, to varying degrees
applicable to everyone on a periphery, and it applied in Sydney as it did in
Tokyo. The difference between these two in degree can be expressed in terms
of the relative capacity to apply the general concept of ‘us’ to the relationship.
By emerging into a confident and optimistic position in the new century,
it was felt that Japan could provide its own version of ‘universality,’ drawing
upon its own traditions, but speaking in a philosophical language that would
not only be understood by Western scholars but also be recognized for its own
truth and universal relevance. Nishida expressed this idea in many ways and
the following is from his collected works:

“Up to now Westerners thought that their culture was
superior to all others, and that human culture advances toward their
own form. Other peoples, such as Easterners, are said to be behind
and if they advance, they too will acquire the same form. There are
even some Japanese who think like this. However...I believe there is
something fundamentally different about the East. They [East and
West] must compliment each other and...achieve the eventual
realization of a complete humanity. It is the task of Japanese culture
to find such a principle.”1
This seems unremarkable at first reading, but it contains the kernel of an
idea that challenges the West’s ‘ownership’ of universal culture, hinting that
history can no longer claim to culminate in European civilization. This required
that history would need to recognize multiple centers.2
Whatever meaning we ultimately attach to the causes or outcomes of the
Pacific War, and how ever repulsed we are by the conduct of the war, this
emerging philosophy was the first serious intellectual challenge to Euro-
centrism. Given that the vast majority of people in the world are not Western
or Euro/American, this is hugely significant in modern history. It is destined to
become more so.
Our examination of the Kyoto school will be quite superficial.
Philosophy makes for demanding reading, and this school in particular has
been the subject of a huge body of writing and debate. The reason is that
Japanese philosophy has been both blamed for, and absolved of, guilt and
complicity in the development of imperialist and ultranationalist tendencies in
Japan before and during the war. Several difficulties apply in particular.
First, nearly all the philosophers produced contradictory statements
over the course of their careers. This should not seem surprising when dealing with subtle human minds, particularly when the analysis of a pure idea can
often relate opposites to each other by virtue of their extreme difference. This is
further complicated by the application of the Zen notion of absolute nothingness
to an entity that in the West is seen as an absolute something. These things are
compounded by the political climate of the time, the subtle but all pervading
censorship as well as the potential consequences of challenging the prevailing
view.

Second, the Japanese language and the presentation of its concepts do
not lend themselves to simple translation into English. Huge differences in
meaning can arise from a culturally insensitive choice of a word. Where
possible, it is helpful to work from texts by Japanese nationals who learned
English, or scholars who have lived for significant periods in Japan and have
studied there.
Further, the method of debate and the presentation of argument in
Japanese culture cannot be appreciated from a simple Western perspective.
Language use in forming an argument in Sinitic cultures is different from the
Western, linear, polemic methods. Opposing arguments may be approached in
a more circular manner, converging on points of similarity or difference,
somewhat like an insect spiraling down to land on a flower, considering its
object throughout several passes. The consideration of the ‘object’ may be
likened to recognition of status and the preservation of ‘face.’
Nishida began a national, intellectual project that involved the very
rigorous study of Western sources synthesized with core Zen Buddhist
concepts. But by the early 1930s, the wider national discussion focused
increasingly on nationalism, causing the critique of Euro-centrism to become
more emphatically nationalist, rather than universal.
Unless you are prepared for an enormous research task (and possibly
even then), your view of the position of Kyoto thinkers within this debate will
depend on your choice of reading and your view of history. It is still debated,
but it does seem that the most compelling and consistent writings by the
leading philosophers, notably Nishida and Tanabe, emphatically rise above
extreme nationalism, expressing abhorrence for any abuse of people for
national purposes. Their support for a national agenda was perhaps no more
nationalistic or imperialistic than that which was considered moderate in Britain, America, or Australia at the time. The difficulty is that there are
exceptions.

What Kyoto intellectuals were searching for was a particular form of
modernity, which could address a persistent aspect of Euro-centrism that
sought to dominate other cultures. Some would argue that in addressing it they
became it, but that is to confuse the idea with the reality. One inhabits the
realm of the philosopher and, the other, the realm of the soldier. The issue
came to a head during a series of discussions, or symposia, held immediately
before Pearl Harbor and not concluding until 1942 but published in 1943. The
realities that needed to be dealt with were very different from those at the
beginning of their intellectual journey, and they took place in a very different
atmosphere and context.
The language of the wartime debates became more expansive in a way
that to modern eyes might sometimes seem imperialistic. But since Japan’s
struggle in China, Taiwan, and Korea had been both imperialistic and in
competition with other imperialistic powers, this is not surprising. A China of
the 1930s without Japanese interference would have been a China under either
Soviet, British, or American influence or control, or any combination of those.
But they spoke in terms of freeing Asia from foreign domination by unifying
these and other Asian nations in a new world order. In doing so, they
unwittingly provided the rationalization for aggression. However, the kind of
mind capable of imagining the transformation of the Asian peoples into co-
operative post-colonial nations was not the kind of mind that had been trained
by the Army and placed into politically ambiguous frontiers.
In fact, semi-autonomous sub-imperialists whose military conditioning
was based on the mythological and the quasi-religious staffed the Japanese
overseas project. Many were agents for all that was irrational, self-serving, and
chauvinistic, and their semi-autonomy was the basis for all of the ‘incidents’
that undermined Japanese intellectual life, politics, and foreign policy.
From the Kyoto School point of view, Ultra-nationalism and Fascism
were manifestations of a Romantic exuberance, born of, and fed by, suffering,
poverty, fear, and frustration, and they were destined to fail. Despite the
debates about the meaning of the School, this much is clear: They understood that Tojo’s aggressive policies would fail and they acted, as best they could, to
undermine them. They stood instead for rational self-mastery.

The Japanese experience understood in these terms can inform our
understanding of current struggles against imperialism and the subjugation of
peoples, as well as the futility of resorting to emotional and irrational means in
the pursuit of self-realization.
We are not really naive enough to believe that the West’s interest in the
Middle East is about the altruistic desire to export freedom and democracy.
Modernity demands fuel and raw materials, and the actions of America,
Britain, and Australia in the early 21st Century have parallels in those of Japan
of the late 1930s: If not to own the supply, then to make sure the supplier is of a
co-operative or compliant frame of mind. The Kyoto struggle to find a non-
dominating form of modernity has to be our struggle, if the West is to earn its
unlikely claim on continued hegemony. Further, the facile attempts to
transplant democracy into countries that cannot embrace intellectual pluralism
represent a shameful ignorance or disregard of the Japanese experience. First
rational pluralism, then, gradually , democracy . Democracy is potentially
dangerous and very superficial until certainty is widely superseded as a
national paradigm.
What was the thrust of Kyoto thinking as it developed into the 1930s? A
very good place to start is with Tanabe and his thoughts on subjectivity,
arguably his central concept.
Subjectivity (shutaisei) is the essence of this rational self-mastery, a
complex set of values, practices, and institutions without which the planet
cannot be properly managed, or in the language of the Kyoto School, history
cannot be made.3
But self-mastery is also that quality that equips a people to become
dominant over other peoples. By itself and without a rational foundation, self-
mastery is not only potentially destructive, it is also ultimately self-defeating.
The North American democratic adventure that seemed so pure an example of
Enlightenment thinking still managed to enslave thousands of Africans and almost purge the entire continent of its First People and is a perfect example of
the dangerous paradox within the concept of subjectivity.194 Huge power
harbors huge temptations. To illustrate this point, compare our understanding
of the actions of the Japanese Army to the words of one of Japan’s leading
philosophers, Hajime Tanabe.

The following extract is from The Philosophy of Crisis or a Crisis in
Philosophy, Reflections on Heidegger’s Rectoral Address, 1933. The translation from
the Japanese is by David Williams.
”To reject philosophy and acknowledge only the rule of
political necessity as a standard for state conduct exposes the state to
the judgment of history, a judgment that in the end it cannot endure.
No state can long survive, let alone flourish, if it turns its back on
reason.
“When Athens rejected the philosophy of Socrates and Plato,
Athenians proceeded down a one-way street to their destruction. In
the same way, when philosophy disregards the historical necessities
that press on states in a self-satisfied manner, philosophy invites its
own ruin. The fate of late Greek philosophy is one of the best known
examples of such a failure.
“Abandoning the struggle, each side should recognize that
the realist moment and idealist moment form an absolute identity.
This holds out the promise that a concrete unity of these two
moments is achievable. This is what Hegel’s expression ‘What is
rational is actual, and what is actual is rational’ means.”
This is a very grounded perspective from the period before war with
China, but what does Tanabe have to say after Pearl Harbor, when Nazism
appears to be all conquering in Europe, and the Pacific appears to have been
recast as a Japanese possession? The following are extracts from Tanabe’s
article “On the Logic of Co-prosperity Spheres,” again translated by David
Williams, and dated September 1942.

Noting that the British concept of equality as expressed by Missionaries
stood in marked contrast to the reality of the situation in which the developed
country relentlessly exploited the undeveloped one, Tanabe typifies this as
vertical hegemony dominating horizontal equality. He adds the observation
that “Western colonialism attempts to hide the realities of economic
exploitation behind this pretended commitment to equality.” He wanted Japan
to do better, by openly facing the gap between developed and developing
nations and managing the imbalance to the advantage of both. He wrote:
” The link between the persistence of power and order as well
as the hierarchy of power between states that results from this
relationship—need to be acknowledged clearly by both leader and
follower states. But it also implies that this imbalance of power must
not result in the imperialistic exploitation of one side by the other.
The autonomy of the developing states needs to be advanced and
their sovereignty recognized. Effective integration between the
member states is vital to the success of any great project such as that
of building a co-prosperity sphere.”
David Williams provides the first port of call for the reader who needs
to explore the topic in some depth. He demonstrates an intimate knowledge
and understanding of Tanabe’s work and the challenges it poses for the
orthodox view of Pacific War history. In explaining the relevance of the Kyoto
philosophers he writes, in part,
“[the Kyoto philosophers] were rational thinkers in a sense
that any educated European will find plausible. This is what makes
the Kyoto thinker so formidable and therefore so disturbing to any
proponent of Pacific War orthodoxy.
“This brings us to the greatest failure of the Western critic of
the Wartime Kyoto School. In the eyes of the Kyoto philosopher, the
war against Anglo-American hegemony had to be fought with
rational means for rational ends; otherwise, it was wrong
metaphysically and would not succeed practically. But because the
Tojo regime pursued the war for other than rational ends and
insisted on fighting it with less than rational means, the assessment
of the war effort by the Kyoto School may qualify as among the most important expressions of public criticism (admittedly oblique) of the
government’s military strategy to appear in print in Japan between
1941 and 1945.”4

Tanabe was involved in secret discussions with the Yonai Faction of the
Imperial Navy to bring down the Tojo Cabinet. The writings and actions
quoted here are not those of a person we can justifiably call fascist. By seeking
to apply universal standards to national behavior, the Kyoto group threatened
the very basis of the ultranationalist appeal. As Williams put it, “Like the
American exceptionalist, the Japanese chauvinist believed that his country was
in the world but not of it.”5
The Kyoto group were not interested in a national narrative but in the
Japanese role in world history as conceived by Hegel and judged by universal
standards. Tanabe was loathed by the nationalists, in the same way that
Minobe had been in the controversy surrounding his ‘Emperor as Organ
Theory.’ Minobe and Tanabe both tried to subject Japanese institutions to
rational analysis, challenging the distribution and the application of power.
Their persistence, despite criticism from left and from right, from Japanese
Government and Allied Occupation Forces alike, can explain in part the
success of post-war Japan, the ‘economic miracle’ that became the exemplar for
post-colonial Asian subjectivity.
A neo-Marxist will take issue with this line of thinking, and with the
arguments omitted from this very brief and somewhat shallow outline but will
do so because history from that position must follow a predictable path. This
book has been an attempt to avoid a rigid starting position in order to let the
events lead us to a rational, satisfying view. The dissatisfied reader can do no
better than refer to David Williams’ thorough dissection of these issues. His
analysis is extensive, rigorous, and incisive.

4. Ibid, P 139 Read Williams’ on ‘European origins of the Kyoto School crisis’ for an

excellent and very thorough account

Harnessing Discontent & The Issue Of Fascism Making national policy from national discontent: Japan in the 1930's.The diverse tasks involved in subverting and harnessing the widespread
feelings of discontent, which fed and sustained various revolutionary
movements, became a major national project in Japan. The success of the
project provided a relatively stable national platform for industrial growth and
the generation of wealth, but it also created a military movement that saw its
legitimacy as rivaling that of government, rather than merely being its
instrument. This chapter explores the accumulation and the nature of military
power: the threads that became woven into the mantle of Japanese militarism.
We have seen that the project began with the young. Some of the youth
movements that evolved in pre-war Japan combined the expertise of the War
and the Education Offices in their establishment and in their running. Just as
men of influence congregated in groups of common interest to press for
change, the youth were encouraged to seek higher purposes both in and out of
school.
The Society of the Military Valor of Great Japan had about three million
members in 1935. It was supported and supervised by military officers in
preparing boys for military life and learning the benefits of obedience and
discipline, including “exultation of the Japanese war spirit, and rallying the
entire nation, united by Samurai traditions, around the sacred person of the
Emperor.” The Japanese Youth Association organized by the Home Office
maintained sixteen thousand groups with a membership of over two million in
the 1930s. There were many others.
Military societies originally founded to support ex-servicemen were
expanded to play a larger role in developing and maintaining militaristic traditions. They often distributed huge quantities of propaganda material, and
they also organized mass meetings in villages and cities across Japan.

The Ex-Serviceman’s Association, or Zaigo Gunjinkai became much more
aggressive after 1932, and it was this organization that was able to humiliate
several leading liberal thinkers over subsequent years including Minobe
Tatsukishi.
Many early protagonists for totalitarianism used secret societies as
training centers for terrorist activities. Membership of these included many of
the younger officers of the army, and these formed an interesting group for
several reasons. With senior figures heading these societies it is no surprise to
find ambition and zeal amongst the young, but socio-economic factors played a
part as well. Many of the young recruits and conscripts came from
backgrounds of rural poverty or the urban working classes. They harbored
resentment toward the privileged upper strata that could evade military
service by simply continuing their studies. They also resented the corrupt
alliances between the parties and the zaibatsu and the bribery and scandals
among political leaders.
Recruits were exposed to many books of the period, written with their
sympathies in mind. The powerful nationalistic rhetoric in them appealed to
their resentments and ambitions, filling a need that may otherwise have been
satisfied through socialist or communist ideals.
Writing in 1936, Kenneth Colgrove puts their position this way: “their
salaries are small, their education is limited. In the large cities, on the crowded
Ginza, and in the restaurants, they feel out of place. Their self-respect is
preserved only by resort to a preposterous patriotism and anti-foreign
prejudice. And they burn with indignation at the thought of the oppression of
their father’s families.”163 From these groups came the young men who
assassinated Premier Inukai and others.
As a mid-1930s assessment of the progress of fascism, Colgrove’s book
Militarism in Japan is a valuable insight into the mood of the country at the
time, because without the benefit of hindsight he argued that fascism would
not become the significant force in Japan. That he was able to reach this conclusion even as late as 1935 tells us a great deal about the force and speed of
events over the subsequent five or six years. He was certainly aware in detail,
of the many complex forces at work in Japan, and had written
comprehensively about the stumbles and frustrations associated with the
democratic experiment.

Despite the progress made against parliamentary democracy by
assassins and terrorists, Colgrove felt that the militarists had failed to unite the
nation or capture control of the state. In arguing this he gave six, slightly
overlapping, reasons, and these can be summarized as follows.
First: he cited the lack of unity among the various groups, each with its
own program.
Second: there was no co-ordination or strategy as there was in the Italian
and German examples.
Third: They lacked unifying slogans and concepts to mobilize the
population. The danger of communism seemed too remote. He felt the ‘Great
Asia’ idea was a hackneyed battle cry. Russia and America did not pose
sufficient threat.
Fourth: A movement to take the nation by force needed mass
organization. The fascists, he claimed, failed to win the masses, and had in fact
alienated millions who would have responded to a more aggressively anti-
capitalist stance. Terrorism had lowered the prestige of the movement.
Fifth: In spite of the Manchurian Incident, the bourgeois parties had not
entirely lost the battle for parliamentary government. They had succeeded in
gaining universal suffrage [for men], and there had never been a complete
surrender to the militarists.
Sixth: The Genro, the Emperor, and the circle of high officials
surrounding the Emperor had not been in sympathy with the militaristic
movements. At that time, he felt the Emperor appeared to favor a
constitutional regime.
There is one issue, which by itself can address at least the first four of
the limiting factors given above. That is to say, it informs them and sheds some
light on our understanding that Colgrove’s conclusion is still debatable. It
points us to the leadership in Japan and its traditional attitudes to the
population and to politics.

What German and Italian totalitarianism had in common was a cult of
personality, a singular voice and a focused vision, which were thrust
energetically upon an audience of individuals who could be motivated to think
as a mass. Political leadership was public, noisy, and seldom subtle.
In contrast, Japanese leaders remained aloof and unwilling to be seen to
engage with the socially inferior electorate. To explain this it is necessary to
look briefly and relatively at the absorption of individualism as a Western
concept in Japanese political practice.
In the West, authoritarianism had to develop in societies for which
individualism was relatively more entrenched than it was in Japan. Despite its
exposure to modernity, Japanese society never found it necessary or possible to
consider the individual as an isolated unit. That Japanese modernity had built
upon and embraced many traditional values, enabled leadership to gain
enormous power, by Western standards, without the need for the mass rallies
and stirring speeches used in Europe.
The majority of the Japanese elite appears to have had nothing but
abhorrence and fear of mass movements of any type and therefore had no
desire to create a personal political relationship between the leader and the led.
As Scalapino wrote in 1953, “oratory continued to be considered vulgar, and
there was probably no group of modern political leaders who maintained such
resolute silence in public as the Japanese statesmen.”164
The difficulty with oratory was probably that, to engage in speech
making or debate, was to admit to the existence of pluralism, and this by
implication means it is possible to be wrong. Most other parliamentary
traditions had their foundations based in oratory and debating skills. This is
part of the Western inheritance of Greco-Roman intellectualism. The difference
is also partly directional, in that power and wisdom traditionally flowed
downwards in Japan, just as allegiance flowed upwards.
Colegrove gave what seemed to be a reasonable assessment from an
informed 1936 point of view. Many commentators probably shared his overall
assessment at the time, and as we gain distance and moral perspective from the horrors of the Pacific War, scholars may now be more likely than they have
been, to accept it again. In the post-war years, the label ‘fascist’ was to become
a very hot potato among scholars and apologists.

Nevertheless, fascism has been described and defined in many ways,
and the consensus of most modern scholars of Japan seems to be that
Colgrove’s assessment was correct. A more thorough exploration of this
question follows.
Fear Challenging Pluralism
The extent to which a society can adapt and learn, take risks, and face
complexity is dependent upon the safe persistence of pluralism. These things
were all prerequisites to Japan’s participation in modernity, world industry,
and global power. Paradoxically, the very creation of complexity threatens
pluralism, and this was the case in Japan, as it was in many countries in the
period following World War I and the Depression.
When investigating the disintegration of party politics in Japan we can
justifiably regard it as a failure of pluralism. Pluralism in society can be
inclusive, energetic, creative, and evolutionary, but it is often also relatively
threatening and challenging as people are taken into the unknown and the
untested.
Many rural Japanese were happy to have the possibility of a disposable
income and perhaps some previously unavailable goods, but many were also
unprepared to turn their backs on the traditions and values that had formed
the pattern and texture of their collective lives for centuries.
The non-progressive society may appear quaint by modern standards,
but it provided reliable parameters and something of a predictable future—
with all the positives and negatives that could be entailed in that. Modernity
challenged the fundamental relationship between the Japanese people and the
natural world, as well as their sense of belonging within a traditional
community and their spiritual relationship to both the landscape and their
ancestors. Those embracing or demanding modernity regarded all of these as
simply irrational and inefficient.

To drag a newly developing industrial economy into the modern world,
the fears and conservatism of the largely uneducated labor force needed to be
redirected to the national purpose. Our judgment as to whose purpose was the
national one will color our view of the various realities in which European and
Asian people found themselves in the 1930s.
With Japan under enormous economic and social pressure, the forces
that were able to endure and to break through the ‘noise’ of choices, fear, and
confusion were the ones that could most closely become identified with safety,
survival, and strength.
The Totalitarian Mindset
In one sense, the Japanese had to deal with a pluralism run riot, as
hundreds of societies, groups, and parties, each with its own agenda, vied for
support, often from overlapping as well as from competing interest groups.
This was a time of kaleidoscopic ideation, a bit map creating too many images
to comprehend. A type of fractured pluralism developed that could never be
inclusive or even stable in the long term.
The decay of party politics in Japan and the tightening grasp of
totalitarian government, involved normal human responses to generalized
threats and uncertainties, but it did so within the context of a fragile and
immature democracy, which was not able to offer a simple, rational set of
choices to the electorate.
The parallel arm of militarism, with its link directly to the national
symbol, was able to benefit from these uncertainties and anxieties, as were the
arms of bureaucracy. The convergence of industrial and military imperatives
around the concept of national survival created the necessary conditions for a
kind of totalitarian gestalt.
Before we assess the political transformation that followed, there are
some factors that allow the possibility that in differing degrees, the human and
social responses to extreme situations are predictable and normal. Cynical
leaders, for reasons of wealth, power, and control, are able to intensify the
degree of the response. Threatening or emergency situations create a desire to reduce ambiguity and complexity in social systems in favor of simplistic binary
thinking typified by choices such as us/them, good/evil or right/wrong.

This is a form of totalitarian thinking, and it can exist in varying degrees
even within outwardly liberal states, or as a tendency that can be harnessed
even by a single confusing issue. It does not require very much imagination to
see modern occurrences of this type of thinking, as prevalent now as it has ever
been.
In Japan, to keep things in perspective, many people were not compliant
or involved in totalitarian thinking. Pacifists, people of some religious faiths,
elements of the moderate and extreme left, and ordinary people resisted,
personally or outwardly.
Some of them were silenced by fear, by gaol, or by assassination. We
have seen that by 1935, however, they had become silent or silenced. It should
also be remembered that for many, a Western style democracy was never
considered appropriate for the traditional Japanese social structure, and indeed
many saw goodness in the paternalistic alternative, which was not inevitably
linked to rampant militarism or its consequences. That apparent inevitability is
a consequence of hindsight.
In traditional Japan, paternalism was familiar, while ambiguity was
culturally distasteful. In discussing the influence of ambiguity in the
authoritarian mindset, Sampson wrote in 1999:
“First when confronted by an ambiguous situation, one
allowing for a variety of meanings or shades of gray, they feel
discomfort. Second, they deal with the discomfort by seeing a quick
and easy solution that minimizes the subtleties that exist. In short,
they make their world into simple black and simple white. From
time to time, all of us show aspects of this intolerance. The mark of
high authoritarianism, however, is the tendency to deal uncharitably
with ambiguity most of the time.”165
Uncertain situations, like the disarray of party politics in Japan, a
growing trade crisis, and major population shifts from traditional rural centers to the cities, as well as other factors outlined elsewhere, here, were all causes of
social stress and anxiety. Perhaps we can establish a direct link between
anxiety and the need for order and predictability, in the attempt to avoid
potential chaos. As a social phenomenon, this seems almost always to occur at
the cost of novelty, originality, and creativity, producing a restrictive,
controlling atmosphere, which is intolerant of differences.

Diversity is likened to ambiguity by authoritarian personalities who
show a preference for eliminating them in favor of conformity and
homogeneity. Under extreme situations of pressure, even individuals who are
not normally so inclined will exhibit authoritarian tendencies to deal with
anxiety, and this makes them particularly susceptible to propaganda and
prejudicial thinking.
Another indicator in the totalitarian mindset is the creation of an out-
group as a potential threat, and therefore an enemy. The well-known Nazi
Hermann Goering maintained that this was a key strategy for uniting people
and enabling them to set aside internal differences while emphasizing
separateness from ‘the other.’
Perceived differences may be racial, religious, or ethnic, and leadership
will often seek to identify the threat of ‘the other’ in such a way that people see
a polarity—such as, for/against or patriotic/traitor. Emphasis on ‘otherness’
enables the stereotyping of groups and their consequent dehumanizing.
‘Scapegoating’ is an easy progression wherein problems can be linked to the
actions or qualities of the ‘other.’
A fear of imminent threat can also give strength to a leader who can
paint a simple picture of the threat and appear to be decisive about its solution.
The need for strong leadership associated with the factors mentioned above
can also allow a population to make significant personal sacrifices to fund a
military effort, for example.
In a journal article, Alfonso Montuori wrote that,
“the literature of social psychology provides us ample research into the dynamics of conformity and conversion.
Particularly when there is great anxiety, the forces of conformity
come into play and an increasing alignment occurs to what is
perceived to be the voice of authority. Psycho-dynamically , a process of collective projection
occurs, endowing the leader with all the clarity and power
individuals seem to lack—and playing into the leader as a father
role.”166

In the case of Japan, this latter point is subtler than it was in either
Germany or in Italy during the 1930s. The Emperor embodied a spiritual as
well as father role, and while this is arguably also true of Hitler, if it existed, it
was a recently invented, superficial affectation. In Japan, the Emperor was very
remote from the population and was perhaps more powerful and
unchallengeable to the Japanese psyche as a consequence, and the ‘spiritual’
nature of his position had roots deep in national history.
Some comparison of the Japanese experience to that of Europe is
inevitable, despite the obvious fact that Japan shared almost none of the
Western historical experiences. The sweep of history uses the same cast of
players in creating different dramas, and on the level of the individual, humans
tend to respond to situations in ways they always have. Brilliance is the
exception.
Japanese Fascism, Corporatism or Unique Entity?
In 1946, the populations of the allied countries were more than happy to
be reassured that Imperial Japan, like Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, was a
criminal nation that had engaged in a conspiracy to take over the world. They
had been stopped, but attribution of blame would stem from that premise. In
the 21st Century, historians have much more access to research material that can
enable a view with more nuances and possibly less bias?
In the late 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, the Japanese Press was regularly
discussing fascism and, also in that period, many books were published
discussing the merits and disadvantages for Imperial Japan.

In his article on Japanese fascism in 2005167, Marcus Willensky claims that
for the allies there was never any question that Imperial Japan was a fascist
nation. He maintains that it was only in the immediate post-trial era that
Japanese authors seriously began to discuss the implications for historians, of
labeling the pre-war era fascist.
The Cold War and the economic miracle of Japanese recovery added
strength to the arguments of those who felt that the Japanese experience was
somehow different, and that ‘fascist’ was not an appropriate description of the
movement that occurred there. In reconfiguring national policy to include the
former enemy as an ally against communism, many American voices were
enthusiastic in avoiding ‘fascism’ as a descriptor in relation to Japan. Study of
many sources finds that most Japanese of the period were adamant that what
they had was a Japanese phenomenon. Consensus among international
scholars in the half-century since has vacillated.
In a recent book, David Williams argues that despite the grievous crimes
committed in the name of the Emperor, the regime should not be labeled as
fascist. His major interest is in exploring the role of the Kyoto school of
philosophers in Japanese thinking and re-examining their contribution as the
formulators of the first rational philosophy that could embrace and inform a
future in which ‘non-white’ cultures could be more than mere reproductions of
‘whiteness.’
Williams examines a strong Japanese case against Western hegemony,
challenging an orthodoxy, which, he claims, “dishonestly insists that we set
allied ideals against Japanese moral failure.”168 His main focus is on the Kyoto
school of philosophy and the misguided criticism of it since the war. He
strongly resists the use of the term fascist as a descriptor, but it is sensible for
us to separate the philosophers from the government, with the possibility that
one may be fascist and the other not. We will look further at this issue again, but at this point, it is useful to keep to the question of fascism and whether it
developed in Japan or not.

In debating the merits of calling the Japanese phenomenon ‘Emperor-
System fascism,’ Herbert Bix draws an interesting distinction between
militarism and fascism. He writes:
“Where militarism denotes a technique of class rule
associated with military budgets, the arms race, the development of
weapons technology and everything which contributes to the
spiritual support for waging war, the discussion of fascism is
intended to focus attention on the process of change in the political
form itself and the conditions under which such changes persist.”169
Is it important to have a view on this? Does it matter what we call the
system that contributed to the Pacific War? That question raises a further
complication in that we have already seen that the reasons for a confrontation
between America and Japan may have pre-existed Japanese totalitarian
government. In this case, the existence, or not of fascism may be simply
academic, or it might mean that fascism was in part a response to American
attempts at hegemony.
In recent times, the term fascism has been rather loosely applied in
conversation and in the media, and it has come to be used in describing almost
anything vaguely right wing. It is worth being a little more definitive here. Is
fascism a general concept or a specific description, and in either case, is it
instructive or accurate to use it as a reference to the final stages of pre-war
Japan?
The intention of this book is to explore the roots and meanings of the
war, and since debates of this kind can reveal the processes at work from
different viewpoints, it is worth delving deeper than a simple chronological
outline. We don’t need to adopt a position on these questions to benefit from a
discussion of the issues involved.
The term ‘fascism’ is used to represent a range of meanings. Beyond its
application to Mussolini’s Italy, scholarly consensus dissipates as the exact meaning and application become more general. For some scholars, fascism was
an Italian movement and even German National Socialism does not fit within
their definition. For others, fascism was a general phenomenon in Europe
between the wars, and an inevitable outcome of capitalism.

In his essay, “Fascism,” Wolfgang Schieder felt that the term applied to
“any extremist and nationalist movements with authoritarian and tightly
hierarchical structures and anti-democratic, anti-liberal, and anti-socialist
ideologies which founded authoritarian or totalitarian regimes, or aimed to do
so...”170 This is a very general description, which for the non-specialist seems
quite useful in illuminating the situation in Japan. But is it too general?
The international socialist movement first identified the fascist
‘movement’ as it observed the rise to power of Mussolini. It was seen to have
pan-European roots in the “social, economic and political upheavals of the
immediate post [first] war, which bred a turn against liberalism, democracy
and socialism.”171 The early Stalinist view was that fascism represented the final,
and necessary, form of bourgeois-capitalist rule, and was therefore welcomed
as a sign of the death of European capitalism.
Of the dozens of theories explaining fascism, the work of AKF Organski
provides a useful insight into the Japanese case, without referring significantly
to it. In discussing fascism as a phenomenon linked to the persistence of an
established governing class in the face of accelerated modernization, Organski
identifies three patterns that mark the political transformation.
First Organski sees clearly detectable, long range, rapid economic
growth. His second observation is of large-scale mobilization with a heavy
component of rural to city migration. His third element is vast and rapid
political mobilization, particularly acute just before the fascists assume power.172

A development of this attention to the role of modernization was made
by Barrington Moore, Jr., who maintained that for late industrial developers,
“the pre-industrial elites in these societies were not displaced by revolution
and thus were cast in the historically anomalous role of directing the process of
‘revolution from above’ to try to rationalize and modernize their societies,
while at the same time ensuring that they retain their social dominance. To this
end, mobilization and repression were necessary, and the contradictory nature
of the combination in turn necessitated militarism.”173

Both of these theories are very general and do not address class issues in
a way that would be satisfactory to a Marxist historian but they do inform our
search for understanding the Japanese phenomenon. Explaining Marxist
dissatisfaction with such views, McCormack claims that “bourgeois scholars
are inclined to want to set aside the theoretical problems of definition, partly
because they see further research as necessary...but also because of a more
fundamental ideological reason; too many of the paths of theoretical enquiry
lead to various formulas for the association of fascism with liberalism, middle-
class society and capitalism...”174 There is more than a little truth in that, but we
might simply argue that most scholars are more interested in the forces at work
behind the events of the period than they are in nomenclature or definition.
The period after World War II saw the politicization of some academic
research, as governments encouraged an accommodation of the fact that the
former Soviet ally was now the ‘enemy’ and the former fascist enemies were
now allies. Wartime rhetoric suddenly seemed inappropriate. Establishment
views of each regime were encouraged through funding, patronage, and
appeals to patriotic principles, to recast the popular perception in a more
palatable way. The major thrust of the Western agenda quickly shifted from
being anti-fascist to anti-communist.

From seeing the Japanese in the ‘fascist camp,’ the conventional
explanation became that they had been taken over by militaristic cliques and
ultra-nationalist secret societies.

The extension of this thinking saw a growing emphasis on the
importance of constitutional contradictions inherent in the Japanese attempt to
place the Diet, the military, and the emperor in a nationally appropriate
relationship. It is hard to ignore these structural factors, though, because they
create the entire internal context of national development.
Militarism as a descriptor became a Western orthodoxy in a way that
was never applied to the European examples.
The historian Albert Craig asserts that “Japan in this period is better
labeled militarist than fascist. The basic state apparatus was not new or
revolutionary, but merely the ‘establishment’ overlaid by controls and
permeated by an unchecked spiritual nationalism”175.
European Comparisons
The Italians and the Germans of the 1930s provide examples to compare
with, and contrast to, the Japanese developments. The Italian case is
represented best through the words of Mussolini and the writer Alfredo Rocco.
The following description gives some insight into the Italian Fascist thinking.
“Fascism never raises the question of methods, using in its political
praxis now liberal ways, now democratic means and at times even socialist
devices. The indifference to method often exposes fascism to the charge of
incoherence on the part of superficial observers, who do not see what counts
with us is the end and that therefore even when we employ the same means we
act with a radically different spirit and strive for entirely different ends.”
In this, Rocco embraces the contradictory and pragmatic nature of
fascism. He asserts that for fascism the goal and not the path is the key to
understanding the term; therefore, fascism will undoubtedly take on different
forms in different situations and in different hands.

“The end towards which Rocco was striving was the creation of an all-
powerful state that would play the central role in organizing the lives and
livelihoods of its citizens. How this was achieved was less important than its
realization.” 176 In the Japanese example, a preference for pragmatic action
unfettered by political principles represents the right wing determination to
catch up with other imperialist powers as fast as possible, by whatever means,
to assert their unique cultural agenda and their spiritual mission.

Writing in 1932, Yoshino Sakuzo explained that, “To define fascism is an extremely difficult task. We can, however, say in general terms that it implies the rule of the
disciplined and resolute few as against that of the undisciplined and
irresolute many. It is anti-democratic, and particularly anti-
parliamentarian; it is national rather than international; and it tends
to dignify the State as against the individual, or any group of
individuals, except of course the resolute group in whose hands
power is concentrated. These are the ideas which animate the
various groups in Japan...and therefore, in spite of their occasional
repudiation of the title, they can be reasonably be called Fascists.”177Pre-war Japanese politics can be said to have exhibited these
particularities: It was intensely nationalistic. It was racialist—expressing a
belief that the Japanese were racially superior to Westerners and all other
Asians. It was militaristic and imperialistic.178 The element missing in defining the period as fascist is “the totalitarian organization of government and society
by a single party dictatorship.”179

It can be argued that this missing element was no longer missing from
1940, following the disbanding of opposition parties. This left the Imperial Rule
Assistance Association as the only functioning party, and this, combined with
the consolidated powers of the Emperor, was the final link in functionally
legitimizing de facto fascist elements and tendencies, which had been evolving
on a separate path, politically and in the military.
Most Western writers, including Peter Duus and Mark Peattie, both of
whom have been referred to frequently in this book, argue that Imperial Japan
was not fascist. Duus and Okimoto, after dissecting the literature and
demonstrating several inconsistencies and the unsatisfactory nature of fascism
as an analytical concept, suggest a possible alternative paradigm of
‘corporatism.’ They argue that the 1930s were a period of “general impulse
toward managed economies that was on the rise all over the world,” and in the
Japanese case it saw “the formative period of a managerial state or polity, in
which a dirigiste bureaucracy became the central element in the formation and
execution of national policy.”180
Willensky takes a different view. His main emphasis involves the role of
social rather than economic factors. He points out that “the Imperial Japanese
Military and bureaucracy placed great emphasis on collective belonging and a
shared past.” He goes on:
“Starting in the Meiji, Taisho and certainly in the Showa era
there was no lack of government-sponsored propaganda designed
to help the average citizen to see his place in terms of the family, the
household, and the nation, and their relationship to the Emperor in
an unbroken line through history. This process stressed the sacred
importance of Japanese language, culture and history. Part of this indoctrination was an emphasis on the importance of the Kokutai,
literally the ‘body of the State’ in which the concept of the individual
must be subsumed.”181

It is fair to argue that most of the concepts of Mussolini’s fascism
existed, at least as tendencies, in Japan from the beginnings of the Meiji period.
The Meiji vision projected Japan forward as a nation built upon its past and not
as a diluted European democracy, nor a nation of individuals.
The Emperor remained central to the Japanese concept of State despite
several contradictions in his actual relationship and role with regard to the
oligarchs in the Meiji period and the Military in the pre-war period, for
example. In Willensky’s words, “Imperial Japan was fascist not because it
successfully copied what was happening in Italy and Germany but because
that is what the Meiji oligarchs intended it to be, though at the time they lacked
the words to describe it as such.”182
In this, Willensky implies that the various expressions of fascism in the
20th Century were manifestations of pre-existing phenomena which, when
combined, can be labeled as fascist. This is an important difference from the
view of Japanese fascism as a version of an Italian theory or concept. Carl
Cohen puts it this way:
“For Fascism, Society is the end, individuals the means, and its whole
life consists in using individuals as instruments for its social ends. The State
therefore guards and protects the welfare and development of individuals not
for their exclusive interest, but because of the identity of the needs of
individuals with those of society as a whole.”183
The Japanese expression of these elements was called Kodo, and this
included a quasi-religious relationship to the Emperor, who represented the
link with cultural roots and the very birth of the State. In this, the highest achievement of individuals was the sublimation of their wills to that of the
Emperor, regardless of the sources of his policy.

In 1932, Hiranuma Kiichiro made a speech in which, among other
elaborations of national militarism, Kodo claimed, “The individual Japanese
never hesitates to sacrifice his life for the maintenance of that great national
life...” He adds, to clarify the Japanese position, “Fascism, which has become
important of late, is the product of a foreign country resulting from national
circumstances in that country. Our country has its [own] independent object
and its [own] independent mission.”184
Our comprehension of Japanese totalitarianism depends greatly on our
understanding of the democratic movements in Japan, which developed in the
period following the Washington Conference in 1922. The liberal and
democratic elements that grew in this period should not be seen as forces that
could have prevented totalitarianism, but as ones that were necessary for
totalitarianism to move to center stage. This seemingly counter-intuitive
argument was well explained by Ebenstein when he wrote, “No fascist system
can arise in a country without some democratic experience (as in Germany and
Japan), there is not much likelihood of fascist success in countries that have
experienced democracy over a long period.”185
In Japan, a level of democracy enabled a literate society exposure to a
pluralist media, which produced a diversity of opinions and a level of
discontent and confusion. The democratic movement lacked a singular sense of
purpose.
Although the party system gave hope and a voice to some elements,
there was a backlash against it because of confusion and bitterness within
others, undermining the sense of security that modernization had set out to achieve. Seen from this perspective, democracy was a gamble with which the
nation was unable or unwilling to persist.

The growth in power and prestige of party politics during the late Meiji
and Taisho eras was largely eradicated by changes to the composition of the
Justice and Home Ministries and the death of the last of the Genros,186 or elder
statesmen of the Meiji restoration. The result was a return to a power structure
more in keeping with the authoritarian and bureaucratic inclinations first
outlined by the Meiji architects.187
The National General Mobilization Law, passed in 1938, gave the
government much greater power than it ever had in previous eras. Among
other things, it gave authority to move people anywhere the state needed them.
In practice, this created a mobile slave force of Koreans and others.
By 1939, government power was stronger still, but almost as an
instrument of the military, in the form of the Ministry for the Army. The
following example demonstrates its confident power; it is part of a statement
by the Army Minister quoted in the Trans-Pacific.188
“The basic policy regarding the disposal of the China incident has been
established with Imperial approval. It is immutable and will not be affected by
Cabinet change. It is the intention of the Army to pursue its fixed course and
concentrate on containment of the objectives in the holy war.”
In this, the Minister refers to direct access to the Emperor as being the
unquestionable justification for the initiation of government policy at a
domestic level as well as foreign policy, beyond the jurisdiction of
constitutional government. Note also the jingoistic reference to the pseudo-
religious ‘holy war’ in defining national goals. The transformation to
totalitarianism is complete.

Is this representative of a break down of the governmental processes
that evolved from the Meiji restoration? Or does it represent a system returning
to its truer roots, those implicit in the initial authoritarian and bureaucratic
restoration of the Meiji era?
At the heart of the Meiji restoration was an ancient, exquisite culture
that was fiercely conservative and non-progressive. Faced with a modern
world that would no longer be ignored, it embraced change and modernity but
in doing so it grasped even more firmly the central qualities by which the
people could define themselves.
Security and freedom from fear—as opposed to freedom—could only be
achieved by making even more precious the core identity values that had
become the national ‘story.’ The pressures for economic and technical change
served to intensify and concentrate conservative forces in direct proportion to
the insecurity that came with change.
The kind of change faced by Japan was not the gradual, incremental
change mostly experienced in the West; it was explosive and confronting,
changing roles that had been constant for centuries. It produced the type of
anxiety and stress discussed at the start of this chapter, which made the people
even more susceptible to the authoritarian mindset.
These factors allow a view of the transition to totalitarianism “as a
manifestation of cultural continuity.”189 Ebenstein goes further, saying, “In
Germany and Japan [in that period] the authoritarian tradition has been
predominant and democracy is still a very frail plant. As a result, a German or
Japanese with fascist tendencies is no outcast and may be considered perfectly
well-adjusted to his society.”190
In fact, in the case of Germany, the liberal cultural tradition that existed
outside the Prussian field of influence may well mean that the German fascist
experience does not sit well in that example. In Germany and in Italy, separate
states with strong, independent cultural traditions and identities were unified
into nations, and this may have been a more central issue for them.
The need to find a common national identity in these cases involved a
good deal more invention than in the case of Japan. For example, the people of
Bavaria continue to embrace an independent self-image, despite their 19th-
Century domination by Prussia and unification into Germany.

In summary, those who believe that Japan became a fascist state might
use the following seven events to indicate the unfolding of such a
development.
The first would most probably be either the Manchurian Incident of
1931 or the Japanese withdrawal from the League of Nations in 1933. Then, the
‘Emperor as Organ Theory’ controversy of 1935 cemented the Emperor as
Supreme Commander. Following this, the commitment to the Ant-Comintern
Pact of 1936 committed the Japanese to an international anti-socialist
allegiance.
In 1938, the National General Mobilization Law placed the country
effectively in the hands of a military dictatorship capable of over-ruling the
legislature, followed by the dissolution of Political Parties in May 1940.
The sixth event was the signing of the Tripartite Pact with Germany and
Italy in September 1940. The final point of transition is possibly the
inauguration of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association as the only political
force in October of the same year.
These events moved Japan into a pattern of behavior that fits many
definitions of fascism, despite Japanese denials at the time, wherein Kodo is
explained as a Japanese phenomenon free of Western inspiration. As we have
seen, this latter point may well be true, and their path to the pattern we call
fascism may have occurred, even in the absence of a European model.
A lingering doubt arises from the fact that in Japan, so many moderate
and flexible minds were still able to stay within the political process, even after
the installation of Major General Tojo.
When we examine the final negotiations to stave off a war with America
in a later chapter, it becomes evident that Japanese politics oscillated from
extreme positions, but centered on a persistent fear for national survival.
Among all this, there remained a core of people of significant humanity whose
grip on power was only taken from them when it was finally believed that
America’s intentions amounted to starvation of resources, and probably war.

Even when Tojo was given the Imperial sanction to govern, he did not
become a dictator in the conventional sense but the instrument of mobilization
for the national task. Seen from the point of view of those charged with
national survival, this was an entirely rational process—even if Premier Tojo
acted in an irrational manner in carrying out his task.
It can also be argued that ‘fascism’ as a descriptor is only useful as a
polemical concept in the context of Marxist orthodoxy, which is no longer
particularly relevant.
In any case, we can revel in the marvelous irony that a political and
social phenomenon, which sought to address fear and disorder by a reduction
of them to simple dichotomies, without shades of gray or expressions of doubt
or uncertainty, can be so difficult for scholars to agree upon in its definition.

6 comments:

Thank you, Rob. I had to find time to read this, when it was quiet. From the perspective we learned here in the US as post war children, Asia was the "other", not necessarily the political threat of Russia, but not worthy of being a world power, either. First Japan, the China surprised us by surpassing us in what we thought we did best, and I believe that the difference has been cohesiveness of national identity. The failure of US culture to unite as a paradigm informs our internal politics - we are a nation of nationalists with conflicting allegiances. Instead of taking a ripe opportunity to develop an inclusive culture, we become more disparate everyday. Many now are crying about the rise of fascism and the destruction of democracy, but I'd argue that as far as democracy is concerned, we never really got there. How can we be dictated by fascism when no two individuals agree on anything? I often argue that we (meaning all of humanity) need to find common cause, I am accused of advocating homogeneity, when in fact I mean just the opposite. To respect others as much or more than ourselves would preclude violent confrontation. In this, I believe there is an element in Asian cultures that could inform western individualism - the ability to see culture as an organism, mutually dependent. Of course, the tendency of all human cultures toward militarism would need to be overcome. Hard to imagine in our tumultuous times.

Thanks for these observations Michael. You touch on something about the US experience that I hadn't considered, the lack of that characteristic (shutaisei) which the Kyoto school was passionate to make real in the modernisation of Japan- and which led to the powerful economic success there after the war. In fairness though, Britain and USA by this time were successful economies and cultures which had moved beyond pioneering and 'breaking through', into a more consolidating and reactionary phase. The Asian machinery was all new, built to supersede the ageing paradigms and infrastructure and that the West was still managing to carry with them.

I don't pretend to have much in the way of answers, my intention here was mainly to tell a historical yarn and hope that some people might see some relevance to the failures all around us now. Thanks again old friend.

I found your book extract on fascism very interesting. I don’t have much context in terms of Japanese history, but you provide lots to think about in relation to more familiar cultural tensions and ethnocentric positions. (I did also find myself remembering the film, “Letters from Iwo Jima”, which was a powerful experience for me in challenging western righteousness in relation to war with Japan.) As you note, the term “’Fascism’ is bandied about a great deal lately” but many of the points you make do raise alarm bells in relation to current times (I’m thinking mostly about Australia, but also a little about Trump and Brexit, for example):• The amplified fears – of terrorism (always with its links to Islam, and Muslims as the “out-group”) and emphasis on threats to national security. The orchestrated fear allows freedoms to be traded against promises of security (I’m thinking, for example, of the lack of public outcry about metadata retention laws.)• The demonisation of people on social security benefits, which enables labour to be exploited, as people are expected to accept any “suitable” work, with the definition of “suitable” left deliberately vague. The scams exposed in relation to franchises like 7-Eleven provide a glimpse of what happens under those conditions.• The sense of “superiority” (constructed as “merit”) that rationalises privilege and entitlement, and is glaringly evident in relation to First Peoples, but also expressed in sexism, classism, and ableism.• Increasing militarisation associated with national security and the likelihood of a US-style Department of Homeland Security combining existing responsibilities of the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection with control of federal police (AFP) and intelligence (ASIO).• The relentless propaganda emerging from Murdoch Press and the efforts to contain diversity, including the reshaping and containment of the ABC national broadcaster, and the (so far futile) efforts to control social media.• The meaningless slogans (“Jobs and Growth”, for example).• The authoritarianism (and paternalism) of seemingly dominant conservative forces within government. I find the position of “small government” in relation to regulation of business, but heavy-handed control in relation to issues like marriage equality infuriatingly incongruous. Ditto the tension between fluid borders in relation to globalisation and free trade versus restriction of movement of people, particularly those seeking asylum as a result of wars we have participated in.I think we need resistance (and mainly think about that in relation to neoliberalism and corporatism) but I do not know what it should look like. I find myself returning to the comment towards the end of your material that “liberal and democratic forces should not be seen as forces that could have prevented totalitarianism [in Japan], but as ones that were necessary for totalitarianism to move to center stage.” That is frightening, implying as it does that ineffective resistance can do more harm than good.Best for the completion of your book, and its successful publication…Joan Beckwith.

Joan, those points are exactly why I posted this extract on my blog- It is so lovely that someone gets it! Thank you for your thoughtful and detailed response. I am constantly amazed that media let governments -especially so-called liberal democracies get away with this stuff without referencing historical examples. I wrote the book in 2008, it is on Amazon. It's 400+ pages and these essays were a couple of chapters from the middle of the book that just kept coming back into my head because of Trump, Putin et al as you mentioned.

Another one I will revisit later is on the fuel war in the 1920's between Japan and the US- which is an elaboration of the 'starvation of resources' that is mentioned in this post. Another is a chapter on the Paris Peace conference in which the then Australian PM did more than anyone to humiliate the moderates from Japan and added significantly to the shift to the right in that country.Thanks again for taking the time to respond. I don't normally post political stuff on my blog, it is more about sharing a creative attempt at life than a political grizzle, but I just burst the other night! Regards,Rob

Good to hear from Joan. I followed her profile and was very pleasantly amazed. I have added her blog to my sidebar. I am aware that my readers come to me to forget, to fantasize. We have all been lulled into complacency, even those who live on economic margins. Apparently as long as we don't suffer, we develop amnesia.As a student in the '60's, I was politicized - radicalized, we called it. Philosophy taught us that we could change the world by talking about it, letting those who would hoard power know we aren't happy about it. Though the idealism of that time has atrophied, I still believe in the power of communication. Joan says she doesn't know what resistance looks like. I think it looks like this. For the first time in human existence, we have the ability to communicate with everyone, all at once. We no longer need be ignorant of the shape of history. No excuses, either.I'll continue to write about the art of life because I also believe emotional health is the key to peace.